Journal of Rural and Community Development
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Barriers and Enablers to Providing Palliative Care in Rural Communities: A Nursing Perspective
Get PDFNursing plays a key role in the coordination and delivery of palliative care services in rural settings. The purpose of this study is to identify barriers and enablers to providing palliative care in rural communities from a nursing perspective. This study utilized a qualitative descriptive design. Findings highlighted that the remoteness, limited access to resources and professional practice barriers created challenges for nurses as they tried to provide quality palliative care to their clients. System-related barriers were identified and included: lack of services, funding issues, and poor continuity of care. Despite these barriers, nurses drew from supports to optimize palliative care such as using a team approach to care, centers, utilizing local case managers and informal community members, and using palliative care resources. These results may help inform policy decisions around the needs of nurses who practice in rural settings to provide quality care to individuals who are dying and their families.
Keywords: palliative care, rural nursing, community, qualitativ
Organizational Changes and Employment Shifts in the Mining Industry: Toward a New Understanding of Resource-Based Economies in Peripheral Areas
Get PDFTechnological development and innovation have improved productivity in mining; consequently, mining employment has decreased. In the light of a growing demand for raw materials, mining activities have increased in many mining regions. In Sweden, this development has had modest effects on employment levels, although improved productivity is not the sole explanation. The aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which a reorganization of mining employment has occurred; which industrial sectors might be affected by such restructuring; and whether restructuring has any implications on gender equality. Previous studies by Eriksson (2004) and Knobblock & Pettersson (2010), have demonstrated that new employment strategies, in addition to mergers and acquisitions, have been implemented and that they affect employment. However, the extent of this reorganization remains unknown. The current study was carried out in Västerbotten, a mining region in northern Sweden. By means of unique longitudinal database, connecting information concerning individuals and companies and covering the total population of Sweden, along with data from the Mining Inspectorate of Sweden, this study examined issues of employment, labour mobility, and gender equality. Key informant interviews with mining stakeholders were also conducted, adding to the knowledge concerning organizational changes. The data suggests that an organizational change had occurred, with jobs having been outsourced by the mining industry to other sectors. This led to the start-up of new companies, increased employment, and the inclusion of more women in the field. Results also indicated that the mining industry and related companies have represented new development potential in peripheral mining regions.
Keywords: Mining, Employment, Outsourcing, Innovation, Regional developmen
Development of a "Changes Toolkit" for Rural Older Palliative Patients and Their Family Caregivers
Get PDFA "Changes Toolkit" was developed to help rural older palliative care patients and their caregivers deal with multiple concurrent transitions that cause disruption in their lives. The purpose of this article is to describe the development of the "Changes Toolkit" to support rural palliative patients and their families with transitions using the Medical Research Council (UK) guidelines for complex intervention development The first step was to develop a theoretical understanding of the likely process of change, by drawing on existing evidence and theory, supplemented by new primary research. The intervention was then developed based on this first step by multidisciplinary experts (step 2), followed by conceptual mapping of the critical inputs of the intervention with the theoretical understanding (step 3). Then an assessment of the feasibility of the intervention was completed (step 4). The preliminary findings of a feasibility pilot study of this toolkit were positive with the majority of participants describing it as acceptable, easy to use, and having potential to help deal with transitions
The Adaptation of Rural Communities to Socio-Economic Change: Theoretical Insights from Atlantic Canada
Get PDFWhy do certain rural communities have the capacity for renewal and innovation in the face of transformation, while others stagnate, decline, and die out? What factors are involved in the resiliency of the former communities, and what conditions cause the latter to falter in their capacity for survival? With the hope of gaining valuable insight in support of the economic development agenda of Atlantic Canada, this article reviews the definitional and theoretical literature surrounding the adaptation of rural communities to changes brought about by the transition to knowledge-based economies. The article defines and discusses the merits of community resiliency, community assets, community capitals, and social capital, placing these concepts within a larger entrepreneurial social infrastructure framework. The history and socio-economic realities of the four Atlantic Canadian Provinces are woven together in an effort to keep the literature review and arguments as relevant as possible to the current circumstances of the region.
Keywords: Rural Atlantic Canada; natural resource dependence; economic development; community resiliency; community assets; social capital; entrepreneurial social infrastructur
Resilient Small Rural Towns and Community Shocks
Get PDFWhat distinguishes resilient small towns from towns that never recover from the shock of a natural disaster or plant closing? We define resilient towns as those that are able to maintain or enhance residents' quality of life after a shock. Previous studies suggest that towns with a combination of moderate bonding social capital, high bridging social capital, and high local capitalism will be more resilient than other shocked towns. These expectations were tested using longitudinal data gathered before and after shocks from a relatively large sample of small rural towns located in one Midwestern state. Findings show that the quality of life declined in all sampled towns over the decade. However among shocked and non-shocked towns alike, higher levels of bonding and bridging social capital in 1994 were associated with less of a decline in quality of life over the decade. These findings suggest that building linkages within groups and across diverse groups is an effective strategy for shock preparedness and for general community betterment
Organizational, Pedagogical and Conceptual Changes in the Provision of Education in Rural New Zealand and Atlantic Canadian Communities
Get PDFIn New Zealand and the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador schools in rural communities have adapted to the e-environment to create enhanced learning opportunities for young people. Traditional rural schools have become constituent sites in educational intranets within which e-learning has developed. Intranets provide electronic frameworks within with virtual classes can be organized between rural sites and through which teachers and learners can interact in new ways. Within these electronic educational structures pedagogical considerations have emerged, including the integration of virtual environments to complement and extend traditional schools. It is possible that the adaptation of rural schools to the e-environment will provide lessons for other schools.
Keywords: e-learning, e-teaching, intranet, collaborative teaching, sparsely-populated regions, New Zealand, Newfoundland and Labrado
The Caribbean's Windward Islands Banana Industry: A Heritage of Dependency
No full textWhile the era of Harry Belafonte's Banana Boat Song (day-o) has faded into the annals of history, the challenges facing the small banana farmer in the Windward Islands of Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines still loom in an entrenched 'culture of dependency. Throughout the years, banana farming for export in the Windward Islands has been encumbered by contradictory political economies and value systems, products of an Afro-Caribbean slave heritage. On the one hand, small farmers and other members of Windward Island populations have valued protected markets from former colonisers as an entitlement, while on the other hand they are steeped in a historical dependence on powerful actors located far from the farm gate. This paper explores the cultural, historical, political economic and environmental effects of the Windward Island banana industry's responses to several threats from the outside, and focuses on farmers' need to retain their market for bananas and the strategies pursued. Is the end near for the Windward Islands banana industry in the face of shifting relations of dependency, or will the new form of engagement, the Fairtrade market, reset the historical balance? Is it really "daylight come and me wan go home" for farmers, or will the industry once more reinvent itself and soldier onwards?
Keywords: Challenges, Afro-Caribbean slave heritage, Dependency, banana, Fairtrad
Re-establishing Community Boundaries in Downeast Maine: Understanding the Roles of Ethnicity, Tenure of Residence, Economic & Environmental Conditions
Get PDFBoundary-marking determines not only a community's geographic bounds but also determines who is a member of a community and who is not. This delineation has important implications for access to resources and social stratification. This paper seeks to describe how community boundaries in Washington County, Maine may be contested along lines of ethnicity and immigrant status (both domestic and international) and explores the role of environmental issues and the current economic climate in provoking changes in community boundaries. This paper argues that community membership is correlated not only with tenure of residence but is also a function of ethnicity and class. Data from the 2009 Community and Environment in Rural America (CERA) telephone survey are used to supplement findings from state and federal statistics and contemporary news reports.
Keywords: community boundaries, ethnicity, immigrant status, economic climate, environmental condition
Public Services Choices When There Are No Alternatives? – A Paradox of New Public Management in Rural Areas
Get PDFThere is a common decrease in services in rural areas around the world. This is not at least the case regarding public services, since the decreasing population also decreases the resources available for local public services. The aim of this article is to critically analyse challenges of New Public Management in a rural area community in Sweden to discuss the complex double management role (as employer and as service provider) of the rural municipality.
The core of NPM is based on a private sector ethos and is thus also heavily influenced by corporate sector techniques and management. In this paradigm cost effectiveness and efficiency become the dominant considerations for how the state is run. It becomes even more problematic in rural areas without a critical mass of customers (former citizens) and additional costs for transportation. This is illustrated by a discussion of local schools. The analysis shows that even non-monetary resources should be taken into account to reach legitimate policy changes in rural communities. This opens for a creative discussion on time-spatial localized policy-making including extending the interpretations of local resources.
Keywords: Rural Municipalities, education, New Public Management (NPM), Swede
Temporary Indigenous Mobility in Remote South Australia: Understanding the challenges for urban based health and social service delivery
Get PDFRemote dwelling Indigenous people in Australia frequently move between remote communities and urban centres for reasons such as access to health and social services, cultural and family obligations, and leisure. Such mobility challenges health and social service providers to not only deliver services to remote communities but to make sure that adequate services are available in places Indigenous people visit. This paper documents how service providers in two urban centres in remote South Australia respond to the challenges presented by temporary Indigenous visitors. The paper identifies a number of reasons why the existing health and social service sector is poorly set up to deal with the needs of temporary Indigenous visitors. While many service providers are aware that different groups of (temporary) Indigenous clients may require different services, they are limited in their capacity to change existing service strategies due to rigid funding structures and a lack of inter-agency collaboration and service coordination